Bali

I flew from Jakarta. It was the simplest option in terms of time and cost.

The trains that run to the east of Java have for some reason been discontinued. You could get a train but it would mean getting an additional onward connection to the port, which would add an additional day.

After the ferry, it would work out no cheaper than flying. By my calculation, more expensive and 24 hours plus travel time.

Flying from Jakarta to Denpasar

Total time, 2 hours. Total cost. £45.13.

Arriving in Denpasar. Waited around for an airport bus which didn’t arrive, then took a taxi to

Seminyak

Is on the developed west side of Bali. Developed is the right word. The traffic, especially around the main roads is non-stop, relentless cascade of bikes, lorries and cars.

The closer you get towards the beach, the less through traffic you get, so it tends to tail off a bit. Walking through the main part of Seminyak, it’s pretty cool. Laid back even. Lots of shops and bars and restaurants.

Little markets, massage spas, coffee shops, t-shirt shops. Nik-nak shops. Lots of stuff really.

Whilst I was there, I enjoyed it. At night there was plenty of live music and the hotel I was staying in had some. Great choice of places to eat. A meal and a couple of drinks coming in at around £10/12. Western standard. Cheaper if you want to eat local warung. More expensive for beach front. As you’d expect. Often there, you’re just paying for the views, maybe the atmosphere. The food can end up being overpriced shit. Google maps is your friend here. You might be sitting in what you think is the best restaurant in town until you check maps and reviews are telling you different horror stories about how bad the food is, of service or charges or generally trying to be something it’s not. Busy is usually better.

This cocktail I got from one of the areas ‘most popular’ bars, Potato Head. As I wrote in the Googlemaps review I did for the place, “you’d get more of a head rush from standing up quickly”.

Still, there we are, at least I got to look cool for 15 minutes sitting with all the other cool people whilst I drunk it, and the ice it was swimming in.

After my 2 day stay in Seminyak, I hired a motorbike. This was a Yamaha with gears and a clutch. It was quite a lot quicker and didn’t have the silly little wheels of a scooter. I enjoyed my time touring around the island on it. Even though it rained heavily at times, it always felt stable and predictable, a bit like John Major. Scooters are great until you hit a bump going round a corner, or anything else for that matter. End up falling off and skidding down the road on your arms. Can end up ruining your holiday. I’d rather just pay the extra.

The first place I took it to was

Ubud

The traffic around Ubud was still horrendous, but slightly more bearable than Kuta/Seminyak area. Obviously, with the bike and the right skills and confidence, you can dodge in and out of the traffic. Car travel around Bali must be truly nightmarish. On a bike it’s fairly grueling. Still. The risks bear rewards, and usually you’re able to beat a path along with the other 2 wheelers more quickly to your destination.

I stayed 2 nights. Could easily have stayed more. There’s no shortage of cultural and commercial activities very close in. Also, more natural and scenic if you’re going to get on your bike, or whatever, and venture out into the environs. It was raining a bit whilst I was here, so I didn’t get carried away with that.

Here’s some visuals from what I did do whilst I was in and around Ubud.

Pura Tirta Temple is a good option. Have a good bath in the springs and let the fish nibble your feet.

There’s 7 springs which you go in order from left to right. They make you wear a saree to enter the temple and you have wear be bathing gear to get in the springs. They supply the gear at a small cost.

Also went to the Tegallalang Rice Terrace. Pretty touristy, but well worth seeing.

After this, it started raining pretty heavily and I made my way back to the hotel. After having changed my stuff, I had a look around Ubud art market. This seems to have an international reputation, from what I can make out. There was so much to see, and I was only there for a few hours. I did this short video of one of the shops. There’s much older, more authentic stuff, a strata of different mediums, materials and prices. You could spend days. If you wanted and were looking for something in particular. I wasn’t. It’s easily been my best market experience since I’ve been here in Indonesia.

I can say that without any doubt.

For the evening, I wandered around a little, checking out the different restaurants. I ate at a couple. They were ok.

Later on, I went to the only real ‘bar’ in Ubud. It’s called CP Lounge, and slightly disconcertingly, they search you for weapons when you go in. Luckily, I left all mine at the hotel so this wasn’t a problem.

Drinks weren’t bad, slightly expensive, but not watered down fizzy-pop like I got at Potato Head in Seminyak. Didn’t really stop long, vibes weren’t that good despite the live band.

On my second day, I went to the Neka Museum of Art.

Again, better than things I’d seen in the capital Jakarta. I turned up at 10am and was the only person in the place! Even when I left, there was still no-one there. It was packed with Balinese art of different styles with a little sculpture and photography. All the displays had good English captions as the museum was partly founded with the money from an ex-cia operative who was stationed in Kuta during the the war, Robert A. Koke.

I enjoyed my looking round.

It was time to venture to my next destination, an area suggested to me by Gemini called Mundruk.

It’s close to the ‘sacred lakes’, two lakes located in the highest area of Bali. It was perhaps an hour on the bike, around 40km. It turned out to be a complete waste of time, at least from what I could see which was a lot of coaches, cars, smoke and congestion. I headed up into the mountains a little further to a viewing point which was showing up as an attraction on Googlemaps. Turned out to be essentially nothing. Just a load of cheap warung on the roadside and a few dirty monkeys in the trees.

Boringly, this is when it started raining again. I decided to go and look at some accommodation I had scouted out on maps which was a little closer to the lake.

As I was sitting there, drinking my coffee, I reflected on what I might actually do up here except waste one night. There was nothing to really do or see and the attractions I’d come to see actually looked abysmal. A temple thronging with tourist coaches and traffic trying to park and a sacred lake with warehouses around the side.

Taking a look on accommodation on booking.com, I could see that there was much more accommodation on the east side of the Bali, and one of the reasons I had got the bike was to tour around the whole of the island. So rather than hanging around, I jumped back on my bike and made my way to somewhere called

Amed

This is near a popular dive site called ‘Japanese Warship’. There are many dives from many companies to see this underwater attraction. The area around Amed seemed popular, with a lot of bars and restaurants, and also choices of places to stay in different price ranges.

The homestay I chose was very basic, I basically had a wash and shower, put my rain damp clothes on the dryer and went for a little walk in the locality. There were indeed a lot of bars, the one closest to me about 100m walk. Looked ok, so plumped on going there a bit later. Went back to the homestay, had a little nap, then went out on what turned out to be a rather lengthy night out.

Turns out Amed is home to foreign diving tourists and the bars and entertainment to support them. I met people from France, Germany, Ireland, UK and Canada. There was dancing, singing and drinking, some smoking and swearing also. I left after a while and went home.

This is a lighthouse going around the Eastern headland of Bali.

The next day, rather than take the bike back and stay in Seminyak where I’d rented it, I got a place in Nusa Dua, somewhere recommended to me by a Russian girl in Ubud.

With the traffic manoeuvring across Bali, I didn’t have the opportunity to see much of Nusa Dua. Once I’d returned the bike, I was into the business of sorting out my ferry. I dropped my luggage at Nusa Dua, took the bike back to Seminyak, walked to the travel agencies, got a ticket for the next day, walked to the bus stop and took a bus back to the accommodation in Nusa Dua. By that time it was getting dark.

Nusa Dua

Is like one giant Marriott hotel complex. The hotels may not all be Marriott, but people ride round on golf buggies through the sprinkler fed grass and faux authentic Balinese cultural sculptures.

I always wondered when I used to stay in these hotel complex, what’s the real point of them… You’re basically staying in a microcosm. Isolated from whatever country you may be in.

You could be anywhere.

You get the odd reminder with the odd cultural fixed asset, maybe a local type option on the menu and the funny coloured staff what talk funny who serve you your stuff up and clean the room, but you could basically be anywhere. It’s all one big corporate dollar induced haze.

This is a ferry leaving from Padang Bai Harbour. Took about 2 hours to get Lombok.

Here’s a gallery of all my pictures from Bali.